UK Set To Have World's Biggest Automated Drone Superhighway (bbc.com) 30
The UK is set to become home to the world's largest automated drone superhighway within the next two years. The drones will be used on the 164-mile Skyway project connecting towns and cities, including Cambridge and Rugby. From a report: It is part of a $328.3m funding package for the aerospace sector which will be revealed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Monday. Other projects include drones delivering mail to the Isles of Scilly and medication across Scotland. Mr Kwarteng is to announce the news at the Farnborough International Airshow -- the first to be held since 2019. He will say the funding will "help the sector seize on the enormous opportunities for growth that exist as the world transitions to cleaner forms of flight."
Dave Pankhurst, director of drones at BT, told the BBC that Skyway is about scaling up trials that have been taking place around the UK. BT is one of the partners involved in the collaboration. "This drone capability has existed for quite some time, but is in its infancy in terms of being actually part of our society and being a usable application," he said. "So for us, this is about taking a significant step towards that point. It's going to open up so many opportunities." Skyway aims to connect the airspace above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby by mid-2024, and will receive more than $14.4m. A total of $126.8m of the government's funding will be specifically for projects relating to "integrated aviation systems and new vehicle technologies", including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as drones.
Dave Pankhurst, director of drones at BT, told the BBC that Skyway is about scaling up trials that have been taking place around the UK. BT is one of the partners involved in the collaboration. "This drone capability has existed for quite some time, but is in its infancy in terms of being actually part of our society and being a usable application," he said. "So for us, this is about taking a significant step towards that point. It's going to open up so many opportunities." Skyway aims to connect the airspace above Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry and Rugby by mid-2024, and will receive more than $14.4m. A total of $126.8m of the government's funding will be specifically for projects relating to "integrated aviation systems and new vehicle technologies", including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as drones.
£273M? (Score:3)
It is part of a £273m funding package for the aerospace sector which will be revealed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Monday.
So I'm guessing £10 for the map and £2 for a sharpie?
Either that or it really is 243 milli-pounds - or 25p - as the lowercase "m" suggests, which would be more in line with the true cost of defining a flight path.
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ROFL... a nit-pick post over capitalization while failing to post £ correctly...
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Lowercase "m" is the correct way of writing million when talking about financial figures. It's published like that in literally every style guide. "milli pounds" ? What next someone writing "bn" get a complaint from you because it doesn't spell "giga"? These aren't SI units, they are financial units.
Your posts really get dumber by the day.
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It is part of a £273m funding package for the aerospace sector which will be revealed by Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng on Monday.
So I'm guessing £10 for the map and £2 for a sharpie?
Either that or it really is 243 milli-pounds - or 25p - as the lowercase "m" suggests, which would be more in line with the true cost of defining a flight path.
The A273M sounds like a road designation here in the UK. The A27 runs along the south coast.
Mixed metaphors (Score:2)
Headline makes it sound like it's ground-based drones on a grade-separate right-of-way.
Use of the term skyway at the beginning of the summary only helps some, since often raised causeways and viaducts are referred to with the term when they are overhead of terrestrial infrastructure.
From an energy-consumption point of view, it doesn't really make a lot of sense for things that aren't time-sensitive to be sent through flight when the right-of-way is along preset, long-operating corridors. Flight is extremel
Fuck up environment even more... (Score:4, Informative)
When i read: "help the sector seize on the enormous opportunities for growth that exist as the world transitions to cleaner forms of flight." i immediately think that this will just make the problems we're having with the environment a lot worse.
Ground based traffic is always going to be more energy efficient compared to air traffic. And these aerial devices won't displace the ground traffic, they will just add to it.
So this is just a bullshit green-washed deception to have even more traffic and at an increased energy cost.
It's irony of the highest order that this news is announced during the worst heat wave on records in the UK.
GO UK, you dumb fucks.
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All of your deranged rant depends on the eco-scam being true in the first place.
It's not deranged, it's well motivated and backed up by centuries of science.
And given that you question global warming i'm going to assume that you're either a troll or that someone injected diarrhea into you skull. In either case it's not worth conversing with you.
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Ground based traffic is always going to be more energy efficient compared to air traffic. And these aerial devices won't displace the ground traffic, they will just add to it.
So this is just a bullshit green-washed deception to have even more traffic and at an increased energy cost.
It's irony of the highest order that this news is announced during the worst heat wave on records in the UK.
GO UK, you dumb fucks.
Did you ride the short bus or something? If I'm ordering a tube of toothpaste how is it more efficient to drive around a multi ton truck with a human driver?
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That one truck can carry multiple orders to multiple destinations, whereas that drone can only carry a much smaller quantity of goods and only go to one location (unless they figure out how to carry multiple small loads in containers).
Also, who ordes just a tube of toothpaste? Only one tube? You have nothing else to order?
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If I'm ordering a tube of toothpaste how is it more efficient to drive around a multi ton truck with a human driver?
How fucking dumb are you that you think that currently individual tubes of toothpaste are distributed by single trucks?
Well, ok, your name says it all, i guess.
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If I'm ordering a tube of toothpaste how is it more efficient to drive around a multi ton truck with a human driver?
The multi-tonne truck has more than just your toothpaste in it. You get your toothpaste, your neighbour his new TV, your toothpaste is comparatively carbon free.
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How would a fully electric system taking vehicles off the road 'make the problems with the environment worse'
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How would a fully electric system taking vehicles off the road 'make the problems with the environment worse'
By 'taking off the road' you actually mean 'transporting by air'.
Transport by air is many times less energy efficient compared to transport on the ground.
Meanwhile, the traffic on the ground won't become less.
This plan doesn't reduce the already polluting ground traffic and adds to that a mode of transportation that pollutes even more per transported mass.
The fact that the air traffic is electric doesn't change this. Take into account that the ground traffic is changing to electric as well so electric alone
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Transport by air is many times less energy efficient compared to transport on the ground.
That is by no means certain, unless "on the ground" involves rail (which admittedly *is* extremely energy-efficient). Whether or not something is more or less efficient in the air or on the ground needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
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Please give me an example of a mode of transportation through the air that is more energy efficient than a truck or even a typical car.
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Cars or Trucks are only efficient if the ratio of payload to total gross weight is high. Smaller vehicles allow that ratio to be better.
A drone might have a payload ratio up to 50%, so though it is less efficient gram-for-gram it's more efficient than driving and parking a courier van outside the destination property.
Re: Fuck up environment even more... (Score:2)
Trebuchet?
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And Noise Pollution (Score:2)
Just what we all need, more noise. The constant sound of a thousand angry bees, because money.
It's great to service hard to reach, usually rural, places, but that's not how it really works, because again money. Once the routes are established and accepted, the "costly" routs will see reduced or no service.
FTFA:
"People are looking at lowering packages down from the air - in other words you keep the drone well away from people. There's lots of very bright people out there working on flight plans that delibe
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Yes, the sound of a diesel lorry idling is much better.
Re: And Noise Pollution (Score:2)
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A solution looking for a problem, to multiply it.
Never going to happen (Score:2)
The Chancellor will be gone with the PM in a few weeks, nothing will be done.